Journal of the American Geriatrics Society
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Comparative Study
Earlobe type, race, and age: effects on earlobe creasing.
There has been much discussion of the utility and validity of the earlobe crease as a warning sign of cardiovascular disease. The authors postulated that the mixed findings were due to the neglect of three variables: age, race, and earlobe shape. ⋯ It was found that creases develop with age in healthy adults, that creasing is related to earlobe shape, that the age of onset of creasing varies according to race, and that the frequencies of occurrence of different earlobe shapes differ by race. Future studies of earlobe creases should therefore include the variables of age, race, and earlobe shape.
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Case Reports Comparative Study
Where do elderly patients prefer to die? Place of death and patient characteristics of 100 elderly patients under the care of a home health care team.
This report describes the places of death of 100 elderly home-bound patients served by a home health care team. It compares some medical and psychosocial characteristics of the patients who died at home and the patients who died in an institution, and examines the factors that lead to death in an institutional setting for patients who had planned to die at home. All patients at the time of admission to team care had wished to receive care at home. ⋯ Sociodemographic variables such as age, sexual gender, Medicaid status, living arrangements, diagnosis, and pain level did not appear to be related to place of death. The patient's expressed wish for one or the other option seemed the key factor. Failure to provide death at home to 19 patients was mostly due to a prolonged terminal phase leading to emotional and physical exhaustion in the patient or the family.
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Comparative Study
Mortality associated with hip fractures in a single geriatric hospital and residential health facility: a ten-year review.
Mortality in 159 patients who sustained 163 hip fractures in a single geriatric hospital and residential health facility in a ten-year period was studied. This study confirms the major problem of mortality associated with hip fractures in the very elderly. Factors that seemed associated with mortality were preoperative and postoperative ambulatory status and the overall medical condition of the patients, as evidenced by the higher percentage of patients in the hospital who died after sustaining hip fractures. The age of these elderly patients did not seem to affect the type of fracture or the final outcome significantly.